Category: Rants & Raves

Americans, Gun Laws, and the Arizona Shootings

Below is a post I made to a private Facebook discussion that occurred in response to my Tweet above. I truly know very little about gun laws in the USA, or even much about them in Canada, but every time a violent person kills others with a handgun, the question of where did he get that handgun from comes up. It’s always a valid question, but it seems no matter how many people get killed by handguns in the USA, nothing changes.

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OK, so I spent 10 minutes trying to re-find an article that I read yesterday and couldn’t…but in this article, it stated that the gunman went into Sportsman’s Warehouse that day and purchased a Glock and ammo, and I believe a 30 round magazine. Assuming that’s accurate, right there I have a few problems: being able to purchase a handgun immediately = disaster.

Handguns are either for killing someone else (or a lot of other people), or defending yourself from being killed. The decision to purchase a gun to commit violence shouldn’t be a fast, rash one. Giving someone permission to carry something on their person that can be easily concealed (regardless of what the law says about concealed weapons) should be a measured, controlled process, with only the most vetted of people being allowed to purchase one.

It should be a process that takes days or weeks, not minutes. It seems like the system failed on a bunch of fronts here based on what Vinny wrote – that if various people in law enforcement had done their jobs, he’d never have been able to purchase a gun because he would have failed his background check. Putting that aside though, the basic premise that you can go into a store and leave a few minutes later with a handgun and ammo is insane to me. Humans are emotional, rash creatures who make stupid decisions and making it quick and easy for someone to buy a gun is a massive mistake.

Why shouldn’t handguns simply be banned? Or why aren’t biometric measures required for handguns? The technology to prevent unauthorized firing of a handgun have been there for years, but the gun makers aren’t using them because it would drive down their profits. Can you imagine all the accidental firearm deaths of children if handguns were only able to be fired by the owner of the gun? It would also prevent things like that 17 year old kid last week who took his dad’s gun (who is a cop) and killed the principal and assistant principal.

I get that crazy, violent people will be crazy and violent no matter what. But why should it be so EASY for them to get their hands on something so finely tuned for dealing death? If he had purchased a shotgun or rifle from a hunting store, at the very least it’s a weapon that you can usually see someone coming at you with, and they typically have limited magazine sizes. I read that the 30-round extended magazine on the Glocks were outlawed in Arizona a few years ago, but then that law was overturned. Because, yeah, 10 bullets in a handgun is just NOT enough, you NEED to have 30 bullets in there. Am I the only one that thinks that’s completely bonkers?

And, not surprisingly, I heard today that handgun sales in Arizona are up 60%…and one retailer reported that his sales of Glocks doubled. So in a sadly typical response to gun violence, more guns are being put on the street, which can only lead to more violence.

I think very highly of the USA in many ways, but when it comes to your passion as a country for guns, I just don’t get it.

Bandwith Hell in Las Vegas With Clearwire WiMax 4G

I’m in Las Vegas at CES, and I rented a WiMax modem from a company called Cheetah Wireless. Last year it was a decent solution – not as fast as I was hoping for, but pretty good. This year, it’s a disaster. Check out this pathetic bandwidth:

That’s so slow it feels like I’m using a 56K modem. It’s ugly. Cheetah Wireless is saying it might be a defective modem, but it feels like the real problem is that the WiMax signal is pathetically weak from my hotel room. It’s really hard to do much of anything with Internet this slow… 🙁

UPDATE: I wanted to add that although I was completely disappointed with the performance of my WiMax modem, Cheetah Wireless did everything they could to help. They offered to swap out the modem for me, but we were never able to connect. I used it at the airport for a bit, and the speeds were just as bad there, before I realized that the package to mail the modem back was inside my checked back. So I took the WiMax modem home with me to Canada, then mailed it back to Las Vegas – and the guy at Cheetah Wireless that I was dealing with was very understanding when I explained my error. I probably won’t go this WiMax route again – I’m going to pick up one of these…

Help Me Win $1250 for Kids Who Need It This Christmas

Hi everyone! I need your help to win an unboxing contest that Best Buy is running on Facebook, and it’s for a good cause. Since I do a lot of those, I thought hey, why not enter? There are two grand prizes of $2500 CAD each, awarded as Best Buy gift cards. Since we’re coming up on Christmas, sharing the grand prize if I win makes sense – so I’ve publicly committed to donating half of the prize ($1250) to kids involved with Big Brothers & Big Sisters of Calgary And Area. My mother works for that organization, and I’ve seen first hand the needs that some of these families have. She works with the in-school mentoring program, which pairs younger kids with senior citizen mentors. Apparently the kids are Nintendo Wii-crazy, and it’s an activity the seniors and kids can do together, so I think what I’ll do is buy as many Nintendo Wii bundles as I can with $1250 (it should be at least five of them).

Here’s how you can help me, and the kids, win – oh, and enter to win a $150 gift card yourself!

  1. Log into Facebook, and visit the Best Buy Unboxing Day Contest Site. Click Allow when the app asks for your permission. I’ve noticed there’s a weird bug with Internet Explorer 8 where it loops the process for almost a minute, so you may want to use Firefox or Chrome if you run into trouble.
  2. Find my Samsung Focus video (it’s currently the newest entry, see above) and click on it, then click on Vote in the window that pops up. You’ll need to fill out a little form; I know, we all hate “paperwork”, but this is how YOU get entered to win the $150 gift card, and you can’t vote without doing this step.
  3. Return to that contest site every day to vote – you can vote once every day up until December 31st.

The winners will be announced January 3rd, 2011, and if I win, I’ll announce it here and provide details and photos of the Wii’s I purchase.

If you’d like to watch the video, here it is:

The TSA is Out of Control

I don’t fly very often – maybe four times a year at most – but I’ve been amazed at the slowly increasing level of security at airports in the way that it slowly but surely grinds down the freedoms of passengers who travel. My experience trying to do something as simple as bring a laptop bag with me to CES 2010 is a perfect example of this. The video above though is simply outrageous; as a relatively new parent, with a child who is still breastfeeding, I found this particularly painful to watch. The way this mother was harassed is simply mind-boggling. That the TSA agents would vengefully target her – that they would force her to miss her flight to teach her a lesson – is a grotesque abuse of power. Someone needs to reign in the TSA. Please share this video with others and let your voice be heard on this issue.

via Insignificant Thoughts.

Texting And Driving: Please, Don’t Do It

Warning: The above video is quite graphic, but that’s exactly the point.

When I’m driving and I see someone texting on their phone while driving, I feel a flash of anger. Why? Because that person is putting the safety of everyone around them at risk. And for what? So they can be in constant contact with their friends/family/work? Unless they’re a brain surgeon giving life-saving instructions via SMS to a trauma team as they drive to save someone’s life, they don’t need to be texting or checking their email.  If it’s really that important, pull over for a few minutes and get your communication done. Phone calls are bad enough, but with a phone call your eyes are at least on the road – texting adds road-blindness into the mix, making for a lethal combination.

Texting while driving needs to become as socially reprehensible as driving drunk; people who do it need to be chastised and shamed by their peers and by the public.

Dear Skechers…Stop Being Dumb

When I find a type of shoe that I like and fits my feet comfortably, I’ll end up wearing that style of shoe for years. Skechers has a make of shoe called Klone that I really like, and I’ve purchased several pairs of them over the past few years – in fact, I’ve worn the same brand and style of shoes for so long, I can’t recall what I used to wear before.

Typically I wear a pair until they start to wear out/get really dirty, then I’ll swap to a new pair. My current pair though developed a worn out shoelace – you know, that little plastic tip piece fell off – and so I needed a new pair of shoelaces. I measured the laces out that come with the shoes, and the laces were 68 inches long. Thinking I could pop into any store that sells shoelaces and find what I needed, I checked Wal-mart: nope, they don’t have that length. I checked a couple of other stores, including a shoe repair store that seemed to carry every type of laces ever made, and they didn’t have any either. It seems that the seven-hole Klones make for laces that are much longer than normal.

I was in Edmonton a couple of weeks ago, and at West Edmonton Mall I walked past a Skechers store. I thought “Aha! Shoelace victory shall be mine!” I went in and was told that they don’t sell shoelaces there. What? WHAT? The nice young women working there said that they get people coming in and wanting to buy shoelaces all the time, especially for shoes like mine that require extra-long laces, but they’re not permitted by Skechers corporate to sell shoelaces. What? WHAT? That has to be one of the dumbest things I’ve heard this month – why wouldn’t a shoe store sell shoelaces for their own shoes, especially if those shoes require laces that are difficult to buy elsewhere? This is off-the-charts stupid. The nice young women dug through a box of shoelaces they had there – perhaps from shoes they couldn’t sell – and managed to find me a pair of laces that were within a few inches of matching. Good enough I guess.

I’m sure I can find the proper laces online somewhere, but if I, as an extremely loyal Skechers shoe-wearing customer, can’t find what I need at a Skechers store, what does that say about the company and their ability/willingness to service their customers? Nothing good.

Dear Skechers, please stop being dumb.

A Revelstoke, BC, Wedding

In mid-August we went out to Revelstoke, BC, for the wedding of Ashley’s Cousin Jeff Honig (a talented mountain guide) to his fiancée Stephanie China. It was a quick weekend mini-trip, but we managed to create some fun memories along the way. Here are a few pictures.

Alberta Securities Commission Notice of Hearing for Varun “Vinny” Aurora, David Humeniuk, and Dave Jones

Wondering what happened to Varun “Vinny” Aurora, David Humeniuk, and Dave Jones? The Alberta Securities Commission has something to say. I quote:

“The Alberta Securities Commission (ASC) has issued a Notice of Hearing alleging Calgary residents Varun Vinny Aurora, David Humeniuk and David Jones breached Alberta securities laws by acting as dealers without being properly registered, making serious omissions and misrepresentations to investors and distributing various Concrete Equities Group entities’ securities using offering documents not in compliance with Alberta securities laws.

In the Notice of Hearing, ASC staff allege that Aurora, Humeniuk and Jones, as directors and officers of Concrete Equities and multiple related companies and limited partnerships, made several serious omissions and misrepresentations by failing to fully disclose material, non-arms length contracts connected to the securities being sold and failing to disclose Humeniuk’s lifetime withdrawal from the Real Estate Council of Alberta to investors.”

The appeatence to set a date for the hearing will be held on October 13th, 2010, at 1 p.m. in the ASC Hearing Room on the 6th Floor, 300 – 5th Avenue S.W., Calgary, Alberta. I’m pondering going myself – I wonder if it’s open to the public? The full notice of hearing document can be found on the ASC Web site, but I’ve also mirrored a copy of it here. Continue reading Alberta Securities Commission Notice of Hearing for Varun “Vinny” Aurora, David Humeniuk, and Dave Jones

There is No Ground Zero Mosque

Being Canadian, and not American, there’s only so much right I have to speak to the issues I see happening to the south of me – but this issue of the “Ground Zero Mosque” has really gotten ridiculous. I’m a right-leaning, conservative Christian person, but the things I see the right doing in the US make me shake my head. I have less and less in common with the radical, polarizing crazies who try to turn everything they touch into something politically explosive. This video sums up my feelings on this issue quite nicely.